Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13)

-Big Quacho

Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, is one of the largest and most violent street gangs in the country.

• Most MS-13 gang members are illegal aliens from El Salvador, but also include nationals from Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, and other Central and South American countries.
• With over 10,000 members, MS-13 gangs can often be identified by clothing or tattoos incorporating MS-13 or the number 13.
• Gang members have attacked and threatened law enforcement and committed a sting of ,rapes, assaults, break-ins, auto thefts, extortions, and frauds across the U.S.

MS-13 is one of several illegal alien gangs in the Dallas area.

We now know that some gangs are creating a “good neighbor” policy with other Latino street gangs in Dallas, such as Tango Blast, which is a combination of the Texas Syndicate, Mexican Mafia, and Latin Kings gangs. These dangerous gangs have been joining forces in manpower and drug trafficking, realizing that they can succeed more in their illegal activities if they join forces than by the continued blood rivals.

• Unfortunately, incarcerated gang members have been reorganizing in prison and once released, they band together to handle the security and sales for the drug cartels.
  

Gang members have long been engaged in retail drug trafficking, including cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine, and heroin. As I have mentioned previously,

• Dallas serves as a major drug distribution hub for national drug trafficking, by major Mexican trafficking organizations.
• In 2005, law enforcement officials estimated the illegal narcotic business in Dallas at roughly $10 million a day.
• The fallout of violence along the US/Mexico border in Laredo is in part a consequence of the lucrative drug trade in Dallas as drug cartels and gangs fight for I-35, also labeled the Drug Corridor by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

In response to the rising gang violence in Dallas and across our nation, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) launched Operation Community Shield in February 2005 after a national threat assessment identified MS-13 as one of the largest and most violent street gangs in the country.

Nationwide, ICE arrested 359 MS-13 members and associates, including 10 clique leaders in the first phase of Operation Community Shield. Building on this initial success, ICE extended Operation Community Shield to target all illegal alien gangs, netting about 2,390 arrests from roughly 240 street gangs, including about 920 from the violent street gang MS-13.

Since the crackdown began, much of the gang’s leadership has left Dallas. Additionally, since February 24, 2006, ICE and Dallas police have conducted joint missions of Operation Community Shield, resulting in the arrest of 44 Dallas-area gang members.

I am proud of the Dallas Police Department’s dedication and commitment to ending gang violence as they worked with ICE to crackdown and dismantle violent street gangs in the Dallas area.

Expeditious Removal for Illegal Salvadorans
It is a travesty that illegal alien gang members are here in the first place and an even greater travesty that they are often released after apprehension due to legal loopholes. Currently, an 18-year-old court order affords Salvadorans full deportation process, thus undermining DHS’ authority to apply expedited removal procedures. Issued in 1988, the court order, also known as the Orantes injunction, was designed to protect Salvadorans seeking refuge in our nation from a brutal civil war in El Salvador. However, times have changed. The civil war in El Salvador ended many years ago, and the nation now has a democratically elected government with a developing economy. Unfortunately, MS-13 and members of drug cartels continue to exploit these loopholes in our legal system to thwart our immigration laws and obtain release into our communities.

In response, I am pleased to cosponsor legislation introduced by Congressman Henry Bonilla (R-TX) to close this legal loophole which allows thousands of illegal immigrants to remain in our country each month. The Fairness in Immigration Litigation Reform Act (H.R. 5541) overturns the Orantes injunction, thereby subjecting illegal Salvadorans to the same enforcement laws as other illegal immigrants. H.R. 5541 also establishes judicial guidelines for other present or future cases to ensure that no injunction unnecessarily interferes with the government’s implementation of the expedited removal program. This legislation is critical to implementing interior enforcement effectively and efficiently, and I look forward to working with my colleagues to ensure that illegal Salvadorans are not the exception to the rule of immigration law.

The whole thing from Deport Now

Flaco of MS-13

Guatemalan Recounts Time As Gang Member
NPR.org, December 22, 2008 · El Flaco, as we call him here, was member of Mara Salvatrucha for 18 years, before quitting two years ago. He's 26, was born in El Salvador — and claims to have killed 22 people. Following are excerpts from an interview with NPR's John Burnett.

I was part of the Mara Salvatrucha, a gang which started in the United States and then went to El Salvador. The truth is, I want to leave because I was tired of harming the people. There's a certain limit to where you get tired of doing bad things to people. I'm tired of living this life. I haven't found the love of a mother or a father. I looked for it, but it was difficult to find. Also, I left the gang for the benefit of my daughter, Sandra, who's three years old.

Our slogan was "Vivo por mi madre, muero por mi barrio." "I live for my mother, and I die for my barrio."

What sorts of crimes did I commit? Various. Honestly, I considered crime my salary. We had a satanic cult in which we killed people. For example, we'd take out the heart, and eat it. Then we'd cut up the body leave it in bags on the corner. That's what we did.

It's no joke. In MS-13, we sold our souls to the devil, practically, so that he'll give us everything we need. We sacrificed everybody, including innocent women and children. Every month or two we had to do a ritual. So we looked for somebody, grabbed them at midnight, killed them and took out their heart.

We fried the heart, on the griddle. We used a little salt. The flavor is so-so, like a stew but without much flavor.

We had a saying, if you don't pay, we won't hurt the father. Sadly, it's the children who will pay. That's what we told the father. And we fulfilled our threat and killed children.

We demanded extortion from stores, buses and people. We'd surveil their kids, then we sent them a letter demanding 40,000, 50,000 or 100,000 quetzales (from $500 to $13,000) depending on what kind of business it was and how much they made. If he didn't pay, we'd kidnap his wife or kids and kill them.

We'd send body parts to him to show him we meant business, and then we'd keep kidnapping his family members until he paid.

How did it feel to kill kids? On the one hand, I felt bad. On the other hand, if we didn't do it, they (gang leaders) would kill us.

We spent our money on arms, drugs, we sent money to our brothers in jail. The type of drugs we used was marijuana, heroin, cocaine, hashish, and prescription drugs.

We lived in a house of homies. We built our own house. To hide from the cops, whatever.

There were lots of rumbles between gangs, with Uzis and all kinds of guns. Their territory was only three blocks away from ours. They couldn't come onto our territory and we couldn't go onto theirs.

We also extorted members of our own barrio — 40,000 quetzales a month ($5,200) from families. We offered protection, we didn't bother them, and they wouldn't tell on us. If they didn't pay we'd kill them. Most of them paid.

We weren't afraid of the police. We made sure the police didn't bother us, but if they came we'd meet them with bullets. The police don't like gang members and we don't like them either. The police wanted to kill all of us and we wanted to kill all of them.

The police didn't like us because we f—- up the people. We bother them, we extort, kill anyone in front of us. So with the police we had a rivalry. They didn't like us and we didn't like them.

Los Angeles de la Noche (the Angels of the Night) is a group of police agents who travel in armored cars at night. They kill our homies. The people ask them to because the people get really tired of us f—-ing them over, so they talk with the police and they send Los Angeles, and they kidnap you and kill you.

Some police are involved with maras (gangs), assaulting armored cars, robbing trailers and everything. But the majority are not involved. They try to kidnap us, stop our work. But they'll never succeed because the delinquency will only grow.

Maras are growing all the time because most young people today, what they're looking for is the love of a father and a mother, and they don't get that in their homes so they look for that in a gang. But if you're looking for a family, you'll be deceived. All you get from a gang is income, brutality and scars.

I think we all deserve a chance in this life. Sadly, many of those who join gangs don't have the love of a father or a mother in our home, we were mistreated. I think what they (police) do instead of helping they're destroying our lives. They should be opening factories for work. We're looking for society to accept us, not reject us. I think we deserve a second chance. No one has the right to take another's life. We'll have to pay.

I have various friends who've been killed by sicarios (private hired guns). They killed a companero in El Mesquital, Zona 2, named Blodi. He was 22. The sicarios cut off his head and hands. They left his body in a gulley. He was a gang member, but he'd left the gang.

The sicarios travel at night and kidnap people. They're ex-police who loan their services to the community. They kill people for pay. They get 15,000 to 30,0000 quetzales ($2,000 to 4,000) per victim. Sometimes they cut out the eyes, the tongue, the hands.

On the one hand, I'm afraid of the sicarios, but all in all I know what I've done to people and the same could happen to me. But I don't go out alone. They'll have to get me.

The civilian security patrols (that formed to rid provincial towns of gangs) are effective. We don't mix up with those people because we know they'll catch us and set us on fire alive. In Quiche, they've done this. We don't go to the provinces, for example, San Juan, Xela, San Lucas, we don't mess with those people. They're unified. They'll catch you, throw on gasoline, and that's it.
They killed my brother this way. He was in our gang and he died this way, in Santa Cruz del Quiche. Juan Carlos was my younger brother, 14 years old. We had sent 10 gang members to Santa Cruz to work that barrio. Of the 10 we sent, only two returned. We sent them there to organize Mara Salvatrucha in Santa Cruz. What we look for is to extend our reach into every barrio, so we can grow.

They don't lynch us here in Guatemala City. People are afraid of us here. They're intimidated.

Mas en National Public Radio

Gulf Cartel Appears To Be Expanding in Guatemala

Gulf Cartel Expanding Operations in Guatemala?
In Guatemala City, Guatemala .- The president of Guatemala, Alvaro Colom, said the Mexican Gulf Cartel exercises control in various regions of the country and concluded, following the killing of 17 suspected drug traffickers on Sunday, which now joins the western department Huehuetenango, on the border with Mexico.

"They want to monopolize the whole country," Colom told reporters before, while this group blamed the action on Sunday and warned that it will "take time" to recover the territories controlled by this organization.

• Jose Amilcar Velasquez, attorney general of Guatemala, for its part reported that the Attorney General's Office (PGR) of Mexico offered support research to clarify what happened.
• Velasquez said the Guatemalan prosecutor's office is investigating four areas, including the disputed territory between the Guatemalan and Mexican groups.
• Colom did a recount of the areas of Guatemala that have strong presence of drug traffickers and warned "They want everything, but where their strengths is in the north of Alta Verapaz, in Ixcán (Quiché-north), in Sayaxché (Peten-North) and it seems that they are also in Izabal (Caribbean), "he said.

Regarding Huehuetenango, where the massacre occurred on Sunday, the president said it was believed that drug traffickers had a small resence, but now there are indications that operate "in the entire region."

The dignitary said that the army, mobilized to the area after the events of Sunday, will remain in place "until they regain" the territory. He Said that another critical point is the region of Ixcán, because it is used for landing planes with drugs, so it announced efforts to strengthen surveillance in place.

He recalled that currently has no radar to detect aircraft

The Rest from Catdirtsez